Congratulations to Alisa Smith, whose novel Speakeasy is on the UK-based Walter Scott Prize Academy’s recommended reading list for 2018. The list of 20 books includes historical novels from across the UK, Ireland, and Commonwealth countries.
We’re thrilled for Roz Nay, whose debut thriller Our Little Secret has been receiving fantastic reviews.
The thriller has also popped up on Us Weekly‘s list of Four Killer New Thrillers, Entertainment Weekly‘s 20 New Books to Read in April, and BookBub‘s list of 26 Books Like Gone Girl Coming in 2018.
The movie adaptation of Richard Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse, which boasts Clint Eastwood as Executive Producer, has been called, “so much more than just another Canadian movie” by Maclean’s. To read the full review, click here.
Acclaimed novelist Ann Y K Choi’s debut picture book, ONCE UPON AN HOUR, draws on the traditional Korean practice of timekeeping, in which the twelve animals of the zodiac are assigned to two-hour sections of the 24-hour clock, to show how we can make all the difference in the world if we work together, illustrated by Soyeon Kim, to Liz Kemp at Orca Books, for publication in Fall 2020, by Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists (World).
Award-winning author David A. Robertson’s GHOSTS, the third book in The Reckoner series, a supernatural YA mystery set in the northern community of Wounded Sky First Nation, to Catherine Gerbasi at HighWater Press (imprint of Portage & Main Press), for publication in October 2019, by Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists (World).
From the authors and illustrator of the internationally bestselling, Caldecott Medal-winning picture book Finding Winnie, Lindsay Mattick and Josh Greenhut’s WINNIE’S GREAT WAR, with art by Sophie Blackall, based on the true, remarkable wartime adventures undertaken by the extraordinary bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh, to Suzanne Sutherland at HarperCollins Canada for publication in Fall 2018, by Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists and Kim Witherspoon at Inkwell Management for the authors, and Nancy Gallt at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency for the illustrator (Canada English).
A taut literary thriller by the author of The Dark Virgin, Oakland Ross’s SWIMMING WITH HORSES intertwines the stories of a solitary Canadian teenager and a blue-eyed, gun-toting South African bad girl who spends the summer of 1963 in southern Ontario horse country, to Scott Fraser at Dundurn, for publication in February 2019, by Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists (World).
From the author of the Giller Award-winning novel Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay’s ALL THINGS CONSOLED: A DAUGHTER’S MEMOIR, a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents’ end, and the longer drama of being their daughter, pitched as for fans of Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant and Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, to Martha Kanya-Forstner at McClelland & Stewart for publication in September 18, 2018 by Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists (Canada English). UK & Commonwealth excluding Canada to Christopher MacLehose at MacLehose Press, an imprint of Quercus, for publication in 2019 by Carolyn Forde on behalf of Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists.
From the acclaimed novelist of Brother, David Chariandy’s I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU: A LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER is an intimate and profoundly beautiful meditation on the politics of race today, pitched as in the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, to Martha Kanya-Forstner at McClelland & Stewart for publication May 29, 2018 by Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists (Canada English). World English excluding Canada to Alexa von Hirschberg at Bloomsbury UK & US for publication in April 2019 by Carolyn Forde on behalf of Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists.
David Chariandy’s second novel Brother takes place in Scarborough, Ontario but the prize-winning work of fiction has grabbed the attention of critics across the pond. The Gaurdian‘s Dina Nayeri calls it, “an exquisite novel, crafted by a writer as talented and precise as Junot Díaz and Dinaw Mengestu. It is elegant, vital, indubitably dope – the most moving book I’ve read in a year.” In The Observer, Arifa Akbar calls the novel “A breathtaking achievement … a compulsive, brutal and flawless novel that is full of accomplished storytelling with not a word spare.”
We are thrilled for David Chariandy whose novel Brother won the 2018 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
Chariandy grew up in Toronto and lives and teaches in Vancouver. His debut novel, Soucouyant, received stunning reviews and nominations from eleven literary awards juries, including a Governor General’s Literary Award shortlisting, a Gold Independent Publisher Award for Best Novel, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. Brother is his second novel.
Christine Higdon’s debut novel The Very Marrow of Our Bones is off to a great start. Kirkus calls it, “an ambitious debut novel that will make you cry, cringe, and laugh.” And in an interview with Higdon, Open Book called the novel “a deeply compelling story of secrets, ambitions, identity, and loss, told with insight and honesty and laced with bright moments of hope and humour.” The Very Marrow of Our Bones has also been reviewed in Toronto Star, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist.
The most recent book in Steve Burrows’ Birder Murder Mystery Series, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds, received a starred review in Kirkus! “Skillfully written, full of moral ambiguities and artful puzzles, with a spine-tingling final sentence.” Click here to read the full review.
Two years ago Doug Pepper at Signal/McClelland & Stewart acquired Canadian rights to co-authors of The Big Shift Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson’s EMPTY PLANET: The Shock of Global Population Decline from John Pearce at Westwood Creative Artists. The book was researched on six continents and predicts a surprising decline in the world’s population with major consequences for individual countries and for the planet as a whole, US rights have been sold to Emma Berry at Crown/Penguin Random House by John Pearce; UK & Commonwealth excluding Canada rights have been sold to Tom Asker at Robinson/Piatkus, Constable & Robinson/Little, Brown; Chinese rights to Beijing Huazhong; Japanese rights to Bungeishunju; and Korean rights to Eulyoo,. The UK and foreign sales were made by Carolyn Forde on behalf of John Pearce at Westwood Creative Artists. EMPTY PLANET will be published simultaneously in Canada, the US and the UK, in February 2019.
Eat This! How Fast Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (And How to Fight Back), Andrea Curtis’ follow-up to her bestselling book, What’s For Lunch?, has received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal.